GUIDE TO THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF TASMANIA Section Four RECORDS RELATING TO FREE IMMIGRATION Ian Pearce and Clare Cowling Hobart Archives Office of Tasmania 1975 ACCESS CONDITIONS The records described in this Guide are on open access if they are older than 50 years. Access to those records which are less than 50 years old is at the discretion of their creating authority. CONTENTS Introductory Note Part A: Immigration 1816 - 1837. Part B: The Board of Immigration. Part C: Immigration 1887 - 1946. Part D: Description of Records, 1816 - 1972. Part E: Description of Records of the Board of Immigration. Part F: Appendices 1. Note on Private Societies. 2. Note on naturalization procedures. 3. Tasmanian Acts of Parliament relating to Immigration. 4. Board of Immigration Regulations. 5. Returns of Assisted Immigration, 1832-1890. 6. Assisted Immigrant Ships, 1832-1887. 7. Abstract showing the ships in which Pensioners arrived in the Colony of Tasmania as guards over convicts, with dates of arrival respectively. 8. Return of Immigrants under the ‘Youths for farm work scheme’. 9. Return of Immigrants under the ‘Household Workers’ scheme. INTRODUCTORY NOTE This guide to records relating to immigration to Tasmania is divided into two sections. That dealing with the records of the Board of Immigration was originally intended to be issued separately as a guide to a specific record group. At the same time a survey was being made of all records relating to immigration held in the Archives Office of Tasmania. It was therefore decided to combine both projects and issue them as a general description of records relating to immigration. For this reason there is some disparity between Parts A and C and Part B. Parts A and C are essentially general histories of immigration, whereas Part B is an administrative history of the Board, with particular emphasis on its function as a separate records-creating authority. It is because of this emphasis that the period immediately prior to the inception of the Board of Immigration is included in Part B, as the records produced during this period were taken over and used by the Board itself. PART A IMMIGRATION 1816 - 1837 IMMIGRATION IN THE EARLY PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT. Immigration to Tasmania prior to 1820 was discouraged rather than the reverse. Only those persons with letters of recommendation from the Secretary of State were welcomed; some persons were refused permission to land in Van Diemen's Land because they did not have these papers. 1 The first migrant ship to arrive in Van Diemen’s Land, a ship chartered by settlers James, William and Thomas Salmon to bring out their families, was the Adamant, which arrived on 20 September 1816.2 It was followed by the Harriott, with forty-five passengers in 1817, the Caroline in 1820 and the Skelton in the same year. 3 Migration/population figures jumped noticeably after 1820, with the introduction of more viable land regulations.4 During the 1820’s a great many respectable settlers arrived, bringing the letters of recommendation from the Home authorities which entitled them to land. Immigration of persons with capital was encouraged by Lieut.-Governor Arthur, who saw immigration as the servant of transportation. The convict system was based on assignment, and men of capital were needed to maintain it. Land policy in the 1820’s discriminated against the less wealthy settler, as the size of land grants was proportional to the amount of capital held. The need for a letter of recommendation to the Governor and the high cost of travel to Van Diemen’s Land also discouraged the poorer person. As well as gentlemen farmers, retired military officers on half pay were encouraged to immigrate ‘by holding out to them, in consideration of their services, advantages superior to those enjoyed by ordinary settlers’. 5 These advantages included remission of quit rent, and the waiving of a deposit as security for the land. Instituted in 1826, the scheme also applied to Naval Officers. Retiring officers who intended to emigrate, instead of relinquishing to the Crown one third of the value of their Commission as required by Army Regulations, were permitted to receive the full value of the Commission on condition that they booked a passage on board a vessel proceeding direct to the Colony. 6 After free land grants ceased in 1831 these officers had to buy land, but a sum was remitted from the cost, in their favour, according to rank and service.7 Subsidised immigration was not undertaken by the Colonial Government in the 1820’s. Persons without capital were not encouraged, although individual settlers sometimes paid the passage fare of servants who were indentured to them until the cost of the passage was worked out. 8 The only incidence of large scale subsidised immigration in the 1820’s was that undertaken by the Van Diemen’s Land Company. Formed in 1825 by an Act of Parliament, the Company's purpose in Van Diemen's Land was the raising of fine-woolled sheep. The Company was granted 250 000 acres of land in north-western Tasmania on which to encourage farming by the encouragement of immigrants from England.9 These labourers were brought out at the Company's expense on the condition that they should not for five years after landing become dependent on the colonial finances.10 Each immigrant was indentured to the Company and given an advance on his wages on embarkation to be paid out of the first wages becoming due after arrival. Later, when the Company was desirous of letting a portion of its estates, intending emigrants with a small amount of capital were encouraged to avail themselves of the offer, although no financial assistance was proposed. 11 Some other Companies were set up in the United Kingdom, with local offices in Hobart to encourage immigration, but their activities folded quickly and there is little record of their policies. 12 5. References 1. In 1819 Lieut.-Governor Sorell refused permission for a settler to return to Van Diemen’s Land (Sorell-Cimitiere 31 August 1819) Governor Macquarie also refused permission for a person to settle in Van Diemen’s Land because he had taken a dislike to him. (Macquarie- Davey 3 February 1814). See H.R.A. Series III Vol. 2. 2. Statistics of Tasmania. 1816. 3. Hobart Town Gazette 2 December 1820. 4. In 1820 Sorell received a despatch stating that in future,letters requesting land grants need not go to Macquarie, but direct to Sorell, who was to have the power to locate land. This new regulation speeded up the process of land grants. (Under-Secretary Goulburn to Lieut.- Governor Sorell, 24 July 1820) H.R.A. Series III p. 39. 5. Bathurst-Darling 1 October 1826 GO1/3 No. 74. 6. GO1/5 No. 5 Secretary of State-Arthur 23 November 1827. 7. CSO1/562/11422. 8. One such case was that of Peter Brewer GO1/30 No. 30. 9. GO1/5 p.350 Van Diemen's Land Co. Director to Hay, 3 August 1827. 10. Ibid. This condition was imposed by Goderich. 11. VDL70. 12. One such Company was the Scottish-Australia Company, established in 1822 to bring Scottish emigrants to Hobart Town and Sydney. The Company ceased to exist in 1831. Another was the Tasmanian (or Van Diemen’s Land) Joint Stock Company, of which the only record is its prospectus, published in the Hobart Town Gazette, 28 January 1825. Sources. 1. Historical Records of Australia Series III, is the primary source of material for the period prior to 1820. It records land policy and regulations which are the clue to policies on immigration. 2. Statistics of Tasmania gives free population figures for each year and numbers of land grants. 3. Governors Office inward and outward despatches (GO1 and GO33). These despatches contain information relating to His Majesty’s Government's policies on immigration and the Colonial Government’s reaction. 4. Hobart Town Gazette. This newspaper is almost the only source of passengers and shipping lists for the period of the 1820’s. 5. Van Diemen’s Land Company Records. The most valuable are the despatches (VDL1) which contain general information on indentured immigrants. GOVERNMENT SPONSORED IMMIGRATION, 1831-1837. On 28 January 1831, Lieut.-Governor Arthur received a Despatch from the Secretary of State, Viscount Goderich, ordering that no more land be granted to colonists. l The reasons for this order were twofold. Firstly, large tracts of land were being alienated to persons without the means to improve and cultivate. Secondly, the system of indiscriminate land grants had not served one of the 6 purposes for which it had been instituted, namely to relieve the Mother Country of its unemployment problem: ‘No such relief can be possibly afforded by the mere removal of Capitalists . it is the emigration of the unemployed British labourers which would be of real and essential service.’ The concept of pauper immigration was not new. In 1823 Earl Bathurst, the Secretary of State, had suggested to Governor Brisbane that a supply of free labourers might be encouraged by His Majesty’s Government, should such a supply be called for. 3 Lack of finance was the primary obstacle to the emigration of the poor. Goderich suggested that a scheme of assisted immigration be set up to defray the expenses of emigrants who would otherwise undertake the cheaper passage to America. 4 Money was to be raised for this purpose out of the proceeds from land sales or from finance donated by individual colonists desirous of employing non-convict servants. 5 On the 24th of June 1831 an Emigration Commission was set up in London to organize the passage of migrants to Australia.